The Golden Compass

His Dark Materials, Book 1

By: Philip Pullman

Narrated by: Philip Pullman, Joanna Wyatt, Rupert Degas, Alison Dowling, Douglas Blackwell, Jill Shilling, Stephen Thorne, Sean Barrett, Garrick Hagon, John O'Connor, Susan Sheridan, Full Cast

Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

His Dark Materials is now an HBO original series starring Dafne Keen, Ruth Wilson, James Mcavoy, and Lin-Manuel Miranda!

Featuring an exclusive bonus interview between the author, Philip Pullman, and His Dark Materials star Ruth Wilson.

The modern fantasy classic that Entertainment Weekly named an “All-Time Greatest Novel” and Newsweek hailed as a “Top 100 Book of All Time”.

Philip Pullman takes listeners to a world where humans have animal familiars and where parallel universes are within reach.

Lyra is rushing to the cold, far North, where witch clans and armored bears rule. North, where the Gobblers take the children they steal - including her friend Roger. North, where her fearsome uncle Asriel is trying to build a bridge to a parallel world.

Can one small girl make a difference in such great and terrible endeavors? This is Lyra: a savage, a schemer, a liar, and as fierce and true a champion as Roger or Asriel could want.

But what Lyra doesn't know is that to help one of them will be to betray the other....

A masterwork of storytelling and suspense, Philip Pullman's award-winning The Golden Compass is the first in the His Dark Materials series, which continues with The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass.

A number one New York Times best seller

Winner of the Guardian Prize for Children's Fiction

Published in 40 countries

"Arguably the best juvenile fantasy novel of the past 20 years." (The Washington Post)

"Very grand indeed." (The New York Times)

"Pullman is quite possibly a genius." (Newsweek)

Don't miss Philip Pullman's epic new trilogy set in the world of His Dark Materials, the Book of Dust:

• La Belle Sauvage
• The Secret Commonwealth

Listen to the rest of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series.

©1995 Philip Pullman (P)1999 Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Superb.... Wonder-filled." (Washington Post Book World)

"Very grand indeed.... Scene after scene of power and beauty." (The New York Times)

"A rousing, page-turning adventure that promises to please fantasy readers of all ages." (Library Journal)

Great

Great story... great cast and i enjoyed the performance. I look forward to the next book and continued story.

Fantastic narration!

The story is excellent and the narration is extremely well done. I would highly recommend purchasing this version of the audiobook.

A masterpiece

In addition to being part of my favorite series of all time, this audiobook includes a full cast and the narration is done by Philip Pullman himself! If there is such a thing as a perfect audiobook, this may very well be it.

The Movie Adaptation Sparked my Interest

I throughly enjoyed the book. I never thought of reading or listening to young adult fantasy or fantasy in general until “Game of Thrones”. After realizing how much I enjoyed GoT, minus the gore, I gave the Harry Potter series a try. Wow! I like this good vs evil fantasy literature. As often is the case, I expected the book to provide more depth than the movie “The Golden Compass”. I was not disappointed and received more surprises as the movie diverged from the book at different points. Lyra is a forbearing and compassionate heroine. I’m excited to read the next installment to know her further adventures and who she befriends, defends, or offends along the way.

great story!

this was so much better than the show n loved narrators!
so much more to the book

Epic tale of the struggle of life

My second reading of this epic adventure. What a wonderful experience! Thank you, Mr. Pullman!

Amazing!

This is now one of my favorite books! The story is intricate enough and still relatable.

Wow- MORE than an audiobook

This novel's production was an audio-theater, not just an audiobook. Tremendous and extraordinary. It really gave the character's a life. Subtle background music and perfectly cast character actors made this an immersive and wholly entertaining listen! It did justice to Philip Pullman's masterpiece.

Best book ever

It is very good you should listen to this book really really good listen GREAT

A great fantasy with great story development!

An amazing fantasy in which the story unfolds fluidly. Marked by an incredible world and the personality of Lyra, the main character. The events mix political tension, mystic creatures, battles and deep moral questions of philosophy and religion.
This is the first book of the trilogy “His Dark Materials”. The events in the book happen, in the author’s words, in a world like ours, but different.
It is like ours because it has similar geography and history. The catholic church exists and controls politics. There are cars, buildings and machines, although there are no cellphones or internet. Reading the book is easy to identify traces of our own history, like in the bible, the tartars and the inquisition commanded by the church.
But it is also a different world. Humans have dæmons. Dæmons are, roughly speaking, conscious animals that can speak. Each one is linked to its human and they can not stay too far apart. Human and dæmon together make one single entity.
Up to the age of puberty, children’s dæmons can change their forms, transforming themselves into any animal they want. After that age, they become fixed as one true form that matches the human’s personality. Some have dæmons as birds, snakes, dogs, leopards…
As a good fantasy, there are other mystical creatures: monsters, witches, armored speaking bears! And the story unfolds in a fluid and quick way. This is not one of those books that will keep you reading based on anxiety to a specific moment to happen. Maybe my greatest compliment is the interesting way the story develops.
Another remarkably interesting fact is that it is impossible to go unnoticed through the weight of moral and religious matters to the events. The innocence of children, sin and the church intertwine in a philosophical way.
For numerous moments I wanted to know more about Christianity and the moral questions that surround human essence, just to enjoy and extract more of the depth of this book.